46: Court of Owls (the Court's origins and its feud with the Wayne Family; information-heavy)

The organization's origins went back four hundred years, when its members arrived on the American continent aboard the immigrant ship Mayflower. At first, it was merely a Jewish merchant group with its sights on America's gold and spices, but as Westward Expansion began, they discovered that, compared to trade goods, America's vast lands were an inexhaustible treasure trove.

So its members hired the first cowboys and embarked on a campaign of land enclosure, driving out the Native Americans.

But the westward journey did not go smoothly. The Native Americans' savage counterattacks inflicted heavy losses on the forces of civilization, and the land they had acquired looked likely to be taken back.

At the time, the French Revolution broke out. During this period, the League of Assassins distinguished itself, joining forces with workers, peasants, and capitalists to deal a fatal blow to the rotten, declining Bourbon dynasty.

Far away on the American continent, the Jewish merchant group drew inspiration from the League of Assassins' covert operations and trained a group of killers who operated at night.

One night in the early nineteenth century, the Talon Force carried out the first assassination operation in the Court of Owls' history. Wearing owl masks, they launched a surprise attack on a heavily guarded Native American settlement on the frontier.

After all, these Talon assassins had only trained for three months. After silently stabbing the night watchman down, the utterly unprofessional killers actually forgot to finish him off.

The dying watchman sounded the horn to warn of an enemy attack, throwing the entire settlement into chaos.

The Talons despaired. There were only seven or eight of them; under the Native American warriors' spears and arrows, being devoured and flayed alive would take only an instant.

But they soon realized they had been too pessimistic.

So,